Is it a danger, or an opportunity?
on
Nanotech or Nano-Not?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If we somehow do manage to get home "makers" (as they're sometimes called in SF), it's true that the economy will go to Hell in a handbasket. However, everyone's dependence on that economy will follow. In effect, everyone will be able to make their own food, CD players, etc, etc. It will be the beginning of the Real Information Age. People will trade nanorecipes for fridges, stoves, ovens, photovoltaic arrays, computers, and cars over the internet. Just about anything you buy right now will be "downloadable". Like the latest Porsche? Here, someone scanned the one he bought (by dumping it into a maker in "record" mode) and uploaded it to rec.maker-recipe.auto.
Aside from social needs (hospitals, internet service, transportation, government) there won't be a whole heck of a lot left for people to do. Expect the cost of physical labour (and people's incomes from that) to dwindle. Expect the cost of goods to do likewise. "Knowledge workers" who design new items, the recipes for which can be sold over the Internet will do well. These will be people who know How Things Work, and who are currently emplloyed in the manufacturing industry, so at least some people will make the transition nicely.
In a lot of ways it will be good. It will remove a lot of resource bottlenecks such as food, water, oil,.. chocolate.:-) How it will impact our need for energy depends on the efficiency of the technology. Will the energy cost to make a barrel of oil be higher than a barrel of oil? If not, we're in good shape. If so, then we would be in for interesting times.
"Are there MPEG decoders on other platforms?"! This clearly demonstrates the WindowsWorld (and MacWorld for that matter) mindset that is such a problem these days. As if RealMedia and QuickTime formats are as common as vi and emacs.
Note to parent poster: MPEG is wayyyyy more common, and has been available on Unix platforms *MUCH* longer than either QuickTime or RealMedia (or WMV or other proprietary formats).
There's a chance you meant MPEG4, in which case I apologize for not being a mind-reader.
Fire has had auto-translation for years (at least 2, anyway). I used it for a while to talk to someone in Germany. It wasn't all that great, but hey, it's there, and it's open source.
Both Maya (then Power Animator) and StudioTools started life in IRIX
No, Maya started out on the Mac. Back in the early 90's it was a 3D modelling app called "Alias Sketch!" that was Mac-only. Later it was *almost* ported to the PC before a layoff happened that canned the Windows port team.
Because it's from an author who, for the second time, is releasing his book under a "some rights reserved" license, for free, and this hasn't hurt past book sales.
Since both of his books have been released using this method, the above is unprovable. His sales may have been considerably better had he not released it online too.
What it does prove, however, is that it is possible to make a profit from a book that is released in this manner. So it is a qualitative statement about this method, if not a quantitative one. It is an existance counter-proof to those that say "releasing a book under a Creative Commons (or similar) license will kill a book's sales". The publisher would not agree to this method if such a statement were true for the first book.
It was a Linux *Users* group, not a GNU/Linux Philosophy Group (GLPG -- heh, good acronym).
Personally, I agree with the Free Software philosophy, but disparaging people for not following it is.. well, counter-productive, really.
A users group is simply a goupr of people who share a common interest.
In this case, the interest was in *using* Linux.
That's all.
Well, they were winning in 1996 and 1997.
Now that we have StarOffice/OpenOffice, I wonder if a tiny percentage (say 1 or 2%?) is slipping through their fingers.
But then, how would you measure the number of free installs? Most of these surveys only count paid installs, which is invalid when you are trying to include Open Source tools.
Okay, so it can't keep itself parked nicely using thrusters because it runs out of fuel (right? Did I read that right? Hope so). So slap on an ion engine (no hurry really) and push it over to one of the Earth-Moon
Lagrange points
and leave it there -- let's say L3, so as to avoid the moon getting in the way of observing.
Then the only limitation will be how long the solar panels last and any other mechanical bits and pieces.
While we're at it, make the telescope time Open Source-ish.
Allow anyone to (a) submit observation requests, and (b) download all data from all observations.
Hm, that would take a big server or something.
I know, how about hubble.slashdot.org?:-)
We could all vote on what gets observed, with the top 100 winners each month actually being observed (or something).
I'm guessing that the reason they don't use L3 already is because there is too much space junk accumulating there, but this is a what-the-hell solution, so we don't care much.
Maybe the solar panels will get smashed by some junk, but at least the bulk will be relatively preserved (compared to re-entry burn) for future space museums!
[the electric car] also has a limited range of 280 to 300 miles at 60 mph on a single charge.
As opposed to the Ferrari, which has an unlimited range? Given its gas consumption and small size, I wonder just how much more range the Ferrari has? Does anyone know?
Also, is the electric car most efficient (in terms of miles per.. um, Watt I guess) at 60 mph? Or was that speed chosen because it's what gas-powered cars use?
Well, it's more like a search than a browse, but you can sort of see what they have by using the
iTMS Link Maker. It lets you search by artist, album and song name.
Hm, it's almost as if we need new, "cosmetic" APIs for memory allocation. e.g. use malloc() (or calloc() etc.) for normal, really needed memory. Then use "cache_malloc() (or cache_calloc() etc.) for memory that can be purged at a moments notice.
Then, at the very least, all these wonderful GUI memory-meters could show how much RAM is *really* being used. As it stands now, I don't think there's any way to tell, is there?
I guess you could use how long a page has been swapped out as an indicator, but that's not quite correct enough, is it?
It is the *software* that is free. The GPL ensures the software remains free. Other licenses (e.g. BSD) allow software to be branched and updated without ever being available again.
You can think of the GPL as a way of promising the future that as long as this code survives and is used, you will be able to get a current, up-to-date copy of it. The same cannot be said of less free licenses.
When I realized that the term "free" really applied to the code and not to people's use of the code, it seemed to make everything clear.
If I am mistaken in my understanding, please let me know.
This was a pretty recent realization.
.. I gave up moderating this thread in order to post this. Hope it was worth it!
I use a dual-450 MHz G4 with a GeForce 2mx at home and a dual-1.25 GHz G4 (Mirrored Drive Door) with Radeon 9000 (I think) at work. Both machines have 512 MB of RAM. The speed increase is substantial. Apps launch almost instantly and window dragging is snappy. I really, really notice it when I go home and start launching apps and moving things around.
The "feature" that bothers me the most is how the size of the window is tied to the view of the calendar you are using. If you resize the window in "week" view, for instance, as soon as you click "month" view the window snaps to the size it was last time you used "month" view.
I think the main reason this bothers me is that the view controls are at the bottom of the window, so to go back to the previous view, I now have to go hunting for where the controls moved to.
If they put the view-switching buttons at the top of the window I think this problem would be much lessened.
The Doctor is not human, so what's to prevent a female incarnation? How about Catherine Zeta Jones? Or perhaps... Angelina Jolie?
And why does the Doctor have to be caucasian?
Surely there are other races on Gallifrey?
Aong with the sucky network stack, the multi-user support was non-existant. By default, all files were owned by the user baron (Baron was the head QA guy at Be, and was also part of a cool little band). If you changed your USER environment variable to fred, all files would magically change to be owned by fred.
Since there was only one user, there was not a lot of file-level security (they're always all your files).
Although having a proprietary kernel was listed as one of BeOS's features, I always considered it to be a detriment.
BeFS was cool, and the API being C++-oriented was cool, and ya, low latency was cool.
But if the cost was the almost-but-not-quite-POSIX OS, then that's not cool.
Slashdot Mirror
Aside from social needs (hospitals, internet service, transportation, government) there won't be a whole heck of a lot left for people to do. Expect the cost of physical labour (and people's incomes from that) to dwindle. Expect the cost of goods to do likewise. "Knowledge workers" who design new items, the recipes for which can be sold over the Internet will do well. These will be people who know How Things Work, and who are currently emplloyed in the manufacturing industry, so at least some people will make the transition nicely.
In a lot of ways it will be good. It will remove a lot of resource bottlenecks such as food, water, oil, .. chocolate. :-) How it will impact our need for energy depends on the efficiency of the technology. Will the energy cost to make a barrel of oil be higher than a barrel of oil? If not, we're in good shape. If so, then we would be in for interesting times.
Haven't you heard of IP over FireWire?
"Are there MPEG decoders on other platforms?"! This clearly demonstrates the WindowsWorld (and MacWorld for that matter) mindset that is such a problem these days. As if RealMedia and QuickTime formats are as common as vi and emacs.
Note to parent poster: MPEG is wayyyyy more common, and has been available on Unix platforms *MUCH* longer than either QuickTime or RealMedia (or WMV or other proprietary formats).
There's a chance you meant MPEG4, in which case I apologize for not being a mind-reader.
Moral of the story: it's not *what* you know, it's *who* you know.
.. especially if it's a movie producer!
Oh, and it does:
Unfortunately, Fire doesn't support proxies, nor does it support audio/video chats. Ah well.
A users group is simply a goupr of people who share a common interest. In this case, the interest was in *using* Linux. That's all.
Well, they were winning in 1996 and 1997. Now that we have StarOffice/OpenOffice, I wonder if a tiny percentage (say 1 or 2%?) is slipping through their fingers. But then, how would you measure the number of free installs? Most of these surveys only count paid installs, which is invalid when you are trying to include Open Source tools.
While we're at it, make the telescope time Open Source-ish. Allow anyone to (a) submit observation requests, and (b) download all data from all observations. Hm, that would take a big server or something. I know, how about hubble.slashdot.org? :-)
We could all vote on what gets observed, with the top 100 winners each month actually being observed (or something).
I'm guessing that the reason they don't use L3 already is because there is too much space junk accumulating there, but this is a what-the-hell solution, so we don't care much. Maybe the solar panels will get smashed by some junk, but at least the bulk will be relatively preserved (compared to re-entry burn) for future space museums!
Also, is the electric car most efficient (in terms of miles per.. um, Watt I guess) at 60 mph? Or was that speed chosen because it's what gas-powered cars use?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Well, it's more like a search than a browse, but you can sort of see what they have by using the iTMS Link Maker. It lets you search by artist, album and song name.
Then, at the very least, all these wonderful GUI memory-meters could show how much RAM is *really* being used. As it stands now, I don't think there's any way to tell, is there?
I guess you could use how long a page has been swapped out as an indicator, but that's not quite correct enough, is it?
For extra points, how about under one of the BSDs?
Looks like there's still a ways to go though.
You can think of the GPL as a way of promising the future that as long as this code survives and is used, you will be able to get a current, up-to-date copy of it. The same cannot be said of less free licenses.
When I realized that the term "free" really applied to the code and not to people's use of the code, it seemed to make everything clear. If I am mistaken in my understanding, please let me know. This was a pretty recent realization.
Just a tit for your tat.
I think the main reason this bothers me is that the view controls are at the bottom of the window, so to go back to the previous view, I now have to go hunting for where the controls moved to.
If they put the view-switching buttons at the top of the window I think this problem would be much lessened.
Your argument completely falls apart because of this point.
The Doctor is not human, so what's to prevent a female incarnation? How about Catherine Zeta Jones? Or perhaps... Angelina Jolie? And why does the Doctor have to be caucasian? Surely there are other races on Gallifrey?
Can be used as an adjective in a pinch: "mundane user".
Usual use as a noun: "I was out with a bunch of mundanes the other night.."
Since there was only one user, there was not a lot of file-level security (they're always all your files). Although having a proprietary kernel was listed as one of BeOS's features, I always considered it to be a detriment. BeFS was cool, and the API being C++-oriented was cool, and ya, low latency was cool. But if the cost was the almost-but-not-quite-POSIX OS, then that's not cool.